Retrofitting Buildings: Embodied & Operational Energy Use in English Housing Stock

Abstract

This study is aimed at assessing the impact of the insulation refurbishment of the English housing stock on the embodied energy needed for the various refurbishment scenarios and their corresponding operational energy use reductions. An embodied energy model comprising 22 million homes has been constructed, enabling the assessment and comparison of operational and embodied energy use due to the insulation refurbishment of various applicable building elements. Results indicate that mineral wool, sheep wool and expanded polystyrene (EPS) are the optimum insulation materials for cavity walls, cold pitch roofs and warm pitched roofs, respectively.

Keywords

• embodied energy
• operational energy
• insulation
• English housing stock